I Can Only Look Back
by Unit7
Summary: Ben's reflection on how he handled the situation with Amy and Ricky. OneShot


I Can Only Look Back.

When things go wrong, why couldn't there be a sign? You only realize you messed up when its to late, and thats what happened to me? Right? I look back on these past months and I am in utter amazement. I should have known what I was doing was wrong. I should have been the a man and just dealt with it. Perhaps she would still be with me. Perhaps our little love affair was damned from the start? I look back now, and I cringe. I handled it all wrong, but I didn't know that then. Its only at the end when you realize you have erred, that you can see your mistakes. Indeed, you can see the mistakes and they taunt you in the dead of night. The time when all the world around you is dark and silent, the time when a small little creak, one you can easily explain, send shivers down your spine.

I look back, and I see every mistake I have ever made with her. I was to protective. I should have trusted her more. She trusted me, why couldn't I return it? Never once did she betray my trust. I saw the way she looked at Ricky and I knew she felt something for him. Perhaps thats just the residual paranoia that clogs my veins? Yet she never stepped out. Not once, not ever. When Ricky made his first move, she came to me. She confessed everything. But how did I handle that? Like a fool. She trusted me enough to confess this, and I acted like a damned fool. I look back now, and I can see it. If I could do it over, I would have done a better job. I can't go back though. Not now, not ever.

I wonder about what my life would have been like if I had been a better person. Maybe I could have taught John how to throw a baseball when he grew older. Maybe I could have been the one to stay up with him all night. I could have raised him as my own, and I would be lying if I hadn't thought as my own. I knew, and still do not know about raising a child, but I would have learned.

I can only look back. Those times are gone, and those choices are made. I can only look back, while looking for the future. But my future is no longer what it once was. I had envisioned a future with Amy and John. I envisioned a future where Ricky and I were friends, able to conquer the damned foolishness that ran through both our veins. We fought like winners and we came out like losers. No, only I came out as a loser. Ricky got her after all. He will be able to raise John, teach him all he knows.

I won't be able to see it. Because I can only look back. I can't see the future now. I can search, and indeed I have. It doesn't exist, and a part of me jumps for joy. This hell is over, it whispers to me at night. This hell is ending. I listen to it, and I would be lying if I said I didn't believe it. But the search for the future continues... or it did.

The search ended recently. I do not know how it ended exactly, but I can tell you this. It was anticlimactic. It just happened. Nothing exciting, one day I woke up and I gave up. I wonder if there was ever a future for me to find? Maybe the reason I couldn't find it was because what that dark part of me said was true. The hell is ending.

I wondered how I might end this hell. There are a variety of ways. I thought long and hard on this. While sitting in class, while showering, and while walking. I thought of it. The emotions inside me dried up, shriveled, and died. All that was left was regret. Which is why I can only look back. I have no hope for a future, I have no anger to drive me, no pain to distract me, joy to encourage. All that is left is regret. Regret works like a foul disease. It slowly oozes its way through you. Attacking you where you are weakest. But unlike the disease that scientists can cure. There is no release from this hell, not one you can walk away from that is. I believe this is what hell truly is. Where you are forced to relive your worst moment. Forced to see your foolish mistakes, and being unable to do anything. My hell was of Amy and John. How demented is that? The two things I had loved the most in this world, the ones I would gladly die for. They became my torment, my hell.

I felt it around my neck. I felt it tighten. I imagined it to be Amy's arms. I so desperately wanted that tightness to be Amy, for her to lean in and kiss me like she used to. I held that image in my mind. So fiercely I was unaware of my bodies actions. I felt the chair give...

Amy...


End file.
